ochopika

It's a nice design and really mimics Banksy-style stencil art. I think it would be better without the poster as well. Simple is better most of the time in my experience.

However, I just have to ask the question here: Is it okay to use photos like this or not?
Here's a sharper version of the same photo:

It looks like you traced it and cleaned it up in some places, but the shading and most of the detail are directly from the photo.
I'm getting a little confused about that since a couple of designs this time were rejected for using photos, but this one hasn't been. I'm not trying to put your design down, I'm just wondering what the real restrictions are. I know it's already been discussed here many times but I just haven't seen any consistency with this rule.

I do think this is a very good design. It also shows a lot of artistic improvement in your work as far as design skills go. I'm just getting more and more confused about the photo rules.

kharmazero

lyonscc

ochopika wrote:It's a nice design and really mimics Banksy-style stencil art. I think it would be better without the poster as well. Simple is better most of the time in my experience.

However, I just have to ask the question here: Is it okay to use photos like this or not?[/img]

It looks like you traced it and cleaned it up in some places, but the shading and most of the detail are directly from the photo.
I'm getting a little confused about that since a couple of designs this time were rejected for using photos, but this one hasn't been. I'm not trying to put your design down, I'm just wondering what the real restrictions are. I know it's already been discussed here many times but I just haven't seen any consistency with this rule.

I do think this is a very good design. It also shows a lot of artistic improvement in your work as far as design skills go. I'm just getting more and more confused about the photo rules.

Actually, that was the context of my initial comment - In the past (even in the original graffiti derby), Woot has allowed the use of historical images (like the Mona Lisa, Abraham Lincoln, etc.) as reference images, but not modern photographs (which have copyright issues associated with them). They even referenced Banksy in the rules of the original derby, and all of Banksy's work used historical images of some sort, put into a different context. Doing Banksy without historical images references is like doing Psychadelica in black and white. (Thus my original intent to submit this as daily, not a derby, until the theme was announced and fit this.)

There are only a few images we have of Poe, and I chose the one from Wikimedia (which insists on copyright-free pictures) as my reference. I didn't do a direct trace of it (there are several changes, mostly minor - like him looking up, but if it doesn't look like Poe, the joke doesn't work), but I did use the shading, etc. as my guide when drawing it out and creating a stencil from that.

As for the Poster, I understand that some don't like it (and the "less is more" thing). I made the choice to try and follow Banksy's habit of using items on the wall (signs, posters, windows, etc.) as props in his design.

ochopika

lyonscc wrote:Actually, that was the context of my initial comment - In the past (even in the original graffiti derby), Woot has allowed the use of historical images (like the Mona Lisa, Abraham Lincoln, etc.) as reference images, but not modern photographs (which have copyright issues associated with them). They even referenced Banksy in the rules of the original derby, and all of Banksy's work used historical images of some sort, put into a different context. Doing Banksy without historical images references is like doing Psychadelica in black and white. (Thus my original intent to submit this as daily, not a derby, until the theme was announced and fit this.)

I thought that may have been why this particular photo is fine in your case. I'm still a little confused since the rejected zebra design "looks like a photo", but there isn't any photo online that it seems to be copied from. I checked pretty thoroughly because I wanted to see if the zebra photo was from a public domain site, thus deeming the rejection kind of unfair unless they're just rejecting all photos no matter what (which is what they used to do).
You said that this drawing wasn't traced, but most of the details match up exactly when I overlay the image with your drawing. I checked this on my own before I posted on your work because I wanted to be really sure that I wasn't just opening a can of worms for no reason. It's evident to me that the photo was directly copied in some way and not just used as a drawing reference. I've read the debates on your past work and all of them involve your use of digital tracing. I'm not saying that using the technique is bad or good, I'm just saying that it's pretty obvious that you did trace this photo.

I think that you totally should submit this as a daily without the poster. The colors and sharpness of the poster don't match with the soft, sketchy brick wall and spray paint texture. I would buy it and wear it without the poster and with the design right in the center of the shirt.

candogirldesigns

This Derby entry is a "design for design's sake". No clever witty concept art here, although I appreciate that style very much. I had a lot of fun searching Pinterest and Google for authentic Art Deco style elements, color schemes, and fonts. I wanted to recreate a sampling of this streamlined geometric style to show off on a black tee-shirt. It looks good on silver and slate as well. --Carol Borst

vielleicht

ooh, what a nice thing to wake up to!! my goal this Derby was to double the number of votes I received last time (18), and I just did that! I'm so pleased, thank you for the votes, even if I probably won't print.

lyonscc

ochopika wrote:I thought that may have been why this particular photo is fine in your case. I'm still a little confused since the rejected zebra design "looks like a photo", but there isn't any photo online that it seems to be copied from. I checked pretty thoroughly because I wanted to see if the zebra photo was from a public domain site, thus deeming the rejection kind of unfair unless they're just rejecting all photos no matter what (which is what they used to do).
You said that this drawing wasn't traced, but most of the details match up exactly when I overlay the image with your drawing. I checked this on my own before I posted on your work because I wanted to be really sure that I wasn't just opening a can of worms for no reason. It's evident to me that the photo was directly copied in some way and not just used as a drawing reference. I've read the debates on your past work and all of them involve your use of digital tracing. I'm not saying that using the technique is bad or good, I'm just saying that it's pretty obvious that you did trace this photo.

I think that you totally should submit this as a daily without the poster. The colors and sharpness of the poster don't match with the soft, sketchy brick wall and spray paint texture. I would buy it and wear it without the poster and with the design right in the center of the shirt.

I think the deal with the Zebra design was really that there were other designs similar - it looks like the front foreleg isn't anatomically correct in length, and I'm not sure it used a photo. There are other rainbow zebra shirts, tho.

When I say "traced", I'm talking about the AI function (Live Trace). I did use the photo as a guide to get the main shaded portions, along with making some tweaks around the eyes (that mostly got washed out when I started doing the stencil transformations). Some of his neck/tie, I created some AI brushes to get the right effect for the darker portions, because it was too hard to use the simple brush and/or pen tools to get it to look good enough to make a stencil. (I'm still not completely happy with it, as it makes his head look slightly a-tilt)

Per your and oRabbit's suggestion, I may resub it as a daily (sans the poster) if it doesn't get an EC or HM in the derby.

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